


Kitten Love

by seasalticecream32



Series: Merlin Modern Magic AUs [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, F/M, Modern Era, kitty Merlin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2015-09-25
Packaged: 2018-04-23 07:33:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4868459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasalticecream32/pseuds/seasalticecream32
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: “I got cursed and turned into an animal and taken to the shelter and ended up getting adopted by someone who is really hot. OH NO.” AU</p><p>Mergwen.</p><p>Mordred curses Merlin to be a cat until someone recognizes his humanity. Can Gwen help him?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kitten Love

**Kitten Love**

Merlin couldn’t help that he was a ratty cat. He had a bit missing out of his ear, his nose had dried up blood on it, and he was far too skinny. Cats couldn’t survive as vegetarians, after all, and he had a very difficult time making himself eat mice. It wasn’t just the moral aspect of it. Mice didn’t taste very good, and they weren’t easy to catch for an inexperienced hunter.

Point was, he wasn’t a very pretty cat. He didn’t know how on earth anyone was going to take him in. The animal shelters seemed to have an aversion to him. If he couldn’t even get a place dedicated to helping animals to take an interest in him, how was he ever going to get close enough to a person for them to recognize he was human?

It was a cruel curse.

_Until someone recognizes the humanity in you, Merlin Emrys, like you have failed to recognize the humanity in your victims, you are cursed forever to live as an animal and survive in the wild._

He was lucky he was immortal, and that Mordred hadn’t known it when he’d been cursed. Despite all the nine lives rumors he’d heard, he strongly suspected most cats would be dead by now. He’d been run over and picked up by monstrous teenage boys and kept in forgetful old ladies hoard heavy houses. He had a new appreciation for the life of a cat.

He hadn’t found one person compassionate and open enough to recognize him, though.

It was his luck that just when he’d found a mildly appetizing chicken bone that he’d been scooped up by someone who’d shooed it away from him. He watched forlornly as he moved away from his chicken bone, cursing at his inability to communicate.

He found himself in a shelter, but it was dark and dingy and it smelled a lot like old cat piss. Which probably meant that his litter box wasn’t getting changed often. God, Merlin hated people.

He really did.

Which, of course, wasn’t improving his chances at all. He couldn’t be half-arsed to pretend to be sweet and loving when people came by looking for kittens. He just glowered from his little kitty cage and ignored the brightly colored toy they’d tossed in to try to pacify him. As far as he was concerned, anger and dissatisfaction were much more human emotions than cute playfulness. He’d be much more likely to be recognized as a perpetually grumpy person this way.

He was in the middle of a dream where his magic turned him back into a man in his cat cage and he squished out of all the bars when he woke to hands smoothing over his fur.

It was a very gentle touch.

He hadn’t been touched with much care since the last old lady had picked him up and that had been more terrifying than anything. He’d almost been crushed by a dozen boxes in the old lady’s house. He still shivered at the thought of it.

“What’s the matter Thirteen? Did you have a nightmare?” A gentle voice cooed in his ear. He was pleasantly warm, and even though he was hungry, he couldn’t deny that he was comfortable. What had happened to his dirty, tiny cat cage? He looked around blearily and found thin brown fingers cupped around his head.

He tried to respond without thinking about it and huffed after he let out a loud meow.

Still, the woman who held him only giggled. “Hello, I’m Gwen. Nice to meet you. They said you’d be quite grumpy when you woke up. Tried to convince me to adopt someone else. But I knew you’d be perfect. With a name like Thirteen, how could you not be?”

He wondered if the shelter had named him Thirteen or if this was his new person’s name for him. She flashed him a sunshine-y smile and bumped her nose against his. It was a surprisingly intimate action, his blue eyes close and staring into hers. Maybe this would work.

His hopes began to fall a week into staying with her. Her apartment was quite nice. One bedroom, but she’d set him up with a cute little cushion and a water bowl that was always in motion and a mixture of soft and hard food that was easy for his little jaws to eat. He spent most of his nights watching Grey’s Anatomy with her and gazing longingly at the meals she ate.

He found she was quite a good cook. And a vegetarian, like he had been. So she made dishes like vegetarian chili with black beans and grated cheese and he would watch her eat with a single minded interest, incredibly envious and also slightly creeped out at himself. She would always let him lick the spoon after. It was undoubtedly the best part of his night. He missed people food.

Perhaps the second best part of the night was when she’d turn off the television and turn on the radio and start her stretches. She’d run through all her warm up and then the dancing would begin.

She danced to all kinds of music. His favorite so far was when she danced to Caro Emerald and moved in fluid motions and soft steps. Her curls would be tied up in a bun, but inevitably some of them would fall down and cling to the sweat on her forehead. He’d always watch her, sometimes following her as she twirled and bent and swooped. Sometimes, when she was particularly cheerful and her job had gone really well that day, she’d pick him up and dance with his kitty paws.

It was a ridiculous amount of fun and he hated that he enjoyed it so much. At this point, he wouldn’t entirely mind it if he was stuck as a cat forever.

That didn’t mean he’d given up trying, however.

He often tried to tell her he was cursed. He’d do very human things, like try to spell out words in her flour or sneak out to pick her a bouquet or change the television to the same channel each day. He liked the shows with fantasy elements. They always got magic all wrong, so much more and less interesting than what he could actually do. If he was anything like all the sorcerer’s on the telly he’d have stopped being a cat long ago. Sometimes he tried to just magic himself out of being a cat, but always the curse held.

Sometimes, he’d get his hopes up that Gwen would break the curse on a technicality. She’d say to one of her friends “He’s so smart, it’s almost like he thinks he’s a person.” Or “He’s so sweet. He brought me flowers again today. Like having a tiny little boyfriend.” She’d scratch him under the chin until his whole body was vibrating with a purr, but it never worked. No matter how many times she’d compared him to a person, she’d never really recognized him as one yet.

He cursed all the internet videos of cats being clever. They were making his job incredibly difficult.

He sometimes ranted at her about life as a cat, which of course only ever came out as a series of meows and yowls and angry cat noises.

He’d been in the middle of one of these rants when he’d seen it flash across the screen. It had been only a moment on one of those ridiculous magic shows, but he’d dashed to the remote and stole it from her hand, batting her away whenever she’d grabbed for it.

He rewound the show, clumsy with his kitty paws, until the scene showed again.

It was a woman, morphing and shrinking until she became a cat. Gwen chuckled at him, her brow creasing. “That’s weird, Thirteen. Do you like the kitty? How’d you get so good at working the remote?”

He growled low in his throat and rewound it again, this time bumping his head against the screen as the lady changed. When Gwen continued to just look at him, confused, he did it a third time, bumping his head frantically against the screen and meowing loudly.

“Are you trying to tell me something, Thirteen?” She moved to pick him up but he bit at her, feeling only a smidgeon guilty when she hissed in pain and pulled her hand away. He could be a human again if he could only get her to understand.

He tried it one last time, staring at her as he purposefully rewound the show. The label at the bottom said Charmed, a show he’d seen a few times. If he’d known they had cats turning into people on this show he would have paid more attention. He waited until he saw the lady start to change and then he batted the screen and covered his eyes, hoping this time she’d understand.

Gwen gave a nervous laugh. “You can’t be telling me you’re a lady stuck in a cat body. That’s impossible.” She bit her lip as she looked at him.

For a moment his heart froze. Did she have to know he was him? Was there more specific rules than just “she has to know I’m human?”

“Really, Thirteen, if you’re a human, you have to tell me because that really changes things.” She giggled, but some part of her somewhere must have secretly connected all the dots.

Because the next thing Merlin knew he was sitting naked in front of her television, trying desperately to claw off the little collar she’d given him.

“Oh my god.” She didn’t rush over to help him right away. He was just impress she didn’t scream or cuss or pass out. Or all three. He really couldn’t have blamed her.

“I can explain!” He finally rasped out, covering himself. He was already blushing down his neck, torn between relief at not being a cat anymore and mortified that he’d come back naked. He didn’t know what he was expecting. Of course he’d be naked. He hadn’t been dressed in anything as a cat, after all.

“AAH!” And there was the screaming. Gwen didn’t even move on to the other two stages he’d expected. She just kept screaming every time she’d look at him, her mouth never fully closing from her shocked gape. Finally, she covered her eyes with her hands and shouted at him. “Why are you NAKED?”

“Don’t… Don’t you want to know why I was a cat?” He said, taking the opportunity to grab her throw pillow from her seat and cover himself. Much more effective than trying to cover himself with his hands alone.

“You can’t do that! That’s mine!” She squeaked at him.

“You weren’t looking!” He eeped and tossed the pillow, making a split decision to lay on his stomach instead. If he had to choose between her seeing his penis or his ass, he’d go with his ass. “You had your eyes covered! Are you seriously not going to ask why I was a cat?”

“Fine! Why were you a cat?” She said it like he was being ridiculous, but really, if _he’d_ seen a cat turn into a person in his living room, he’d have questions. Starting with why.

“I was cursed by a druid boy to turn into a cat.”

“Why did he curse you?” She scowled. “Did you steal from him? Are you evil or something? Did you promise him your firstborn?”

“You’ve been reading too many fairytales.” He grinned, and she shot him an annoyed glare.

“Look, you just morphed from a cat to a naked man in front of me, I have every right to believe in every fairytale I’ve ever read.”

“Fair point.” He blushed again, and noticed she blushed in return. Well, this was going to go great. They were both shy. “Look, I’ll tell you the whole story, but is there any way I could get some clothes?”

Gwen shook her head, but headed back to her bedroom. “Everything better be right where I left it, you understand.”

She returned with a black shirt that was far too big, and pants that sagged everywhere on him. The belt she’d tossed him was too large, but he used magic to put in an extra hole and tighten it up properly. “Elyan is either bigger than I thought he was when I was a cat, or I’m much smaller than I remember being.”

“Well, I imagine being a cat skewed your perception a bit.” She seemed to have an easier time talking to him when he had clothes on, he noticed. “Now, you were going to explain how and why you were cursed?”

“Well, you see, Mordred had a lover named Kara. And Kara was a sweet girl. Very intense, but she had a good heart. I think. I didn’t get to know her very well before…” Merlin shuffled on his feet. He tried not to think about it, he really did.

It had all been horrible.

And he’d seen the body there, but there’d been nothing he could do. Nothing he’d known to do. Maybe that’s why Mordred had trapped him using magic, had cursed him to see but not be truly seen. He shook his head. “I couldn’t save her. She got caught running. We were all magic, all outlawed, but she fought back in ways we never dared. She was the bravest of us all. He blamed me.”

“That’s horrible. Was… What happened after?”

“I don’t know, I was a cat. I ran away. I was pretty traumatized. Thought I could find help.” He shook his head again, but he couldn’t clear Mordred’s accusation from his head. He’d called Kara his victim. Had said _victims_ as if Merlin had caused many more to die. It had haunted him more than one night. “I didn’t, and couldn’t break the curse myself either. He’d been pretty clear on what had to happen.”

“What did have to happen? I mean, all I did was—”

“You recognized I was human.” He said the words a bit breathless, and caught himself swimming in dark brown eyes and a warm, slow smile.

“You brought me flowers.”

He blushed. “I did. I thought you’d like them. I noticed you always sniffed the purple ones from the front lawn.”

“And you tried to dance with me.” Her grin widened. “And I don’t think I ever saw you peeping on me once. I always wondered why you’d leave the room when I was getting changed. Seemed a very un-cat thing to do.”

“Well, you know, I didn’t want to be rude. You were being so kind to me.” He ran his hands through his hair and remembered that he hadn’t had a comb to it in a long time.

“Well, I thought you were my pet cat. Of course I was being nice to you.”

Merlin tilted his head, grinning again. “Would you not have accepted flowers from me, Guinevere?”

She ducked her head down, her eyelashes lowering when she giggled. “No one calls me that. You know that.”

“Yes, well, it’s a lovely name.” He chuckled. “Look, I understand if you want me out of your hair. After all, no matter my circumstances, our acquaintance was made under false pretenses. You didn’t intend to take on the responsibility of a whole other person.”

“Or a fugitive,” she pointed out, and he flinched away from the word. “Magic is still outlawed.”

“That it is.”

“Do you mind me asking your name?” She bit her lip again, a habit she only did when she was nervous. He wondered what name she was waiting for. If she was expecting him to tell her he was Grindelwald from the ever popular Harry Potter books or some kind of demon creature. He couldn’t blame her for her skepticism. Most of the world only knew of magic in a vague, far away sense. They’d been filling the void between reality and what they knew with fantasy so long that he was sure no one born without magic knew what was true anymore.

“My name is Merlin.” He watched for any sign that he recognized the name, but she only nodded and thinned her lips.

“So, then, as far as magic people go, are you a normal kind of guy?” She eased herself down into her seat. The same one he’d curled into her lap on, and slept away while she watched doctor dramas.

He thought of Emrys and Mordred and Destiny and the crushing weight Kilgarrah had placed on his shoulders as a child. He closed his eyes and sucked in a breath and for the first time in his life, he admitted to himself that he’d failed that mission. Everything to do with Albion was over. He didn’t have that destiny any more. And he let out that breath, flashed her a wide, dimpled smile. “Well, yes, I am quite a normal guy in the magic world. Bit of a failure there, to be honest, but a successful failure.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Gwen giggled and covered her mouth and reached down to pet a cat that wasn’t there. “I’ve gotten used to you being a cat, you know. You owe me a pet!”

“I owe you quite a bit more than that, you know.” Merlin fiddled with the wide hem of Elyan’s shirt on his thin frame. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay you for taking me in and making me healthy again. That shelter was hell. And for breaking the curse. I owe you quite a lot.”

Gwen tilted her head at him, as if considering. “Look, I’m going to call in a few favors. My brother has an extra room and needs some help with rent. So if you can get a job, help him out with cleaning up the place for a while, I’ll consider us even.”

He laughed and shook his head. “That’s not nearly even, Gwen.”

“How about this: You also take me to dinner, teach me about this magic world you come from. Tell me the truth, this time, about who Merlin is.”

He blushed, but nodded. “It is better than being homeless. And I quite like Elyan, he’s sweet.”

Gwen grinned. “Well, before I call him, grab you some tea. It’s time for dancing, and if I remember correctly, you’re quite a cute little dancer.”

 

 


End file.
